Hundreds of farmers from at least seven villages in Purandar tehsil in Pune district, where a greenfield international airport is proposed to be set up, on Thursday staged a protest here claiming the project will hit their livelihood and affect their future generations. During their protest held at the Council Hall here, they said that they would not give their land for the planned airport.

The Maharashtra government had recently given its go-ahead for carrying out a detailed project report (DRP) for the airport, which will be spread over 2,400 hectares. The site has been already approved by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had informed.

However, after the state government’s announcement about the airport, the affected villages — Rajewadi, Amble, Waghapur, Pargaon Memane, Khanawadi, Munjawadi and Ikhatpur had passed resolutions that they would not give their land to the project.

In a memorandum, addressed to the Chief Minister, the villagers expressed their reservations about the project, stating that the upcoming airport would destroy their farming and livestock rearing activity and also affect the future of their next generations.

“If our irrigated land goes into the project, farming activity will be destroyed and we will have no option left but to migrate to other places for livelihood. So we do not want any package and government should not put any kind of reservations on the land of these seven villages,” reads the memorandum.